Finally! Relevant Applications for YouTube and Twitter in the Enterprise!

If you are involved with manufacturing these days, you've no doubt heard about Lean Manufacturing. I'll not go deep into this area here, but one fascinating (for me) aspect is the thread (in some quarters) that ERP and computer systems are the enemy of Lean. On the whole, I don't disagree - process improvement, kanbans, and attacking muda are typically very physical exercises; roaming the floor, walking through the processes (gemba walks), reorganizing workspaces for flow, designing and simplifying standard…

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When is a project a Project? How to prevent the buildup of backlogged requests

I just wrote something up (internal wiki) that I thought was common knowledge, but I think it's one of those soft-skills things that makes total sense once you hear about it - but somebody needs to tell you. I think of one of the reasons that IT (at times) intimidates the business - or why IT gets the cold shoulder when it comes to process improvement efforts - is that we can get a bit too wrapped up in the…

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No Silver Bullet for Group Collaboration over Distance?

Lots of organizations have to deal with the challenge of implementing standard work and best practices over physical distances. With sales offices, distribution centers, and manufacturing locations scattered across the country, what's the best way to get people who know their stuff to collaborate on process improvement - and then take that knowledge back to their home office? While wrestling with this challenge, one executive I know preemptively ruled out videoconferencing. It's a common suggestion, but the general feeling was…

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Update on Blogs as PM Tools – Tales from the Front Lines

We seem to be going through a second wave of focus (hype?) in the popular technology press, on the idea of using blogs as an important project management tool. The topic made the cover of CIO Magazine this week - Lynch made a number of interesting observations - interesting because I don't necessarily see the same things in practice: The Reputation Hurdle: While I agree that blogs aren't fully understood by everyone, the folks that need to use them pick…

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Chicken and egg aggravating? Just start somewhere …

Conversations this week with folks in multiple, different organizations I have connections to, about formal change controls. The general rule, especially for the non-public companies, seems to be reasonable levels of process, but not as well documented, automated, and not as rigidly enforced as the more rigorous among us would prefer. It was interesting talking with the groups that were most frustrated; the developers will talk the talk, but find ways to get around the process when crunch time comes…

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If you want to be more than a programmer, stop programming

A lot of talking with the team yesterday, and I have a sore throat because of it - but we covered some pretty key concepts, stuff that is hard to reconcile in many tech staffers' minds, but must be dealt with. One conversation covered this person's desire to be thought of / leveraged as "more than a programmer". "That's great!" was my response -"... then close the issues that are getting assigned to you - without programming!". Recently, I am…

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